ActivePerl Documentation
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NAMEText::Soundex - Implementation of the Soundex Algorithm as Described by Knuth
SUPPORTED PLATFORMS
SYNOPSISuse Text::Soundex; $code = soundex $string; # get soundex code for a string @codes = soundex @list; # get list of codes for list of strings # set value to be returned for strings without soundex code $soundex_nocode = 'Z000';
DESCRIPTIONThis module implements the soundex algorithm as described by Donald Knuth in Volume 3 of The Art of Computer Programming. The algorithm is intended to hash words (in particular surnames) into a small space using a simple model which approximates the sound of the word when spoken by an English speaker. Each word is reduced to a four character string, the first character being an upper case letter and the remaining three being digits. If there is no soundex code representation for a string then the value of
In scalar context @codes = soundex qw(Mike Stok); leaves
EXAMPLESKnuth's examples of various names and the soundex codes they map to are listed below: Euler, Ellery -> E460 Gauss, Ghosh -> G200 Hilbert, Heilbronn -> H416 Knuth, Kant -> K530 Lloyd, Ladd -> L300 Lukasiewicz, Lissajous -> L222 so: $code = soundex 'Knuth'; # $code contains 'K530' @list = soundex qw(Lloyd Gauss); # @list contains 'L300', 'G200'
LIMITATIONSAs the soundex algorithm was originally used a long time ago in the US it considers only the English alphabet and pronunciation. As it is mapping a large space (arbitrary length strings) onto a small
space (single letter plus 3 digits) no inference can be made about the
similarity of two strings which end up with the same soundex code. For
example, both
AUTHORThis code was implemented by Mike Stok (
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